AN AUSTRALIAN journalist and a Thai reporter have faced court in Phuket on charges of defaming Thailand’s navy in an online news report which alleged security forces were involved in people smuggling.

Alan Morison, 66, formerly of Melbourne, and local reporter Chutima Sidasathien, face prison terms of up to seven years as well as fines of 100,000 baht ($3,300) if found guilty of criminal defamation and breaches of the Computer Crimes Act.

Prior to the hearing, Morison said both he and his female colleague would refuse to pay bail as a matter of protest, even if it meant being jailed during the trial.

“We’ve said in principle that we won’t pay bail as a matter of protest against the law, but it appears as though (their lawyers) are less happy with us going to jail so the bail is likely to be paid by others whether we want it to be paid or not,” he said.

Morison is editor of the online English language news service Phuketwan which last July published a story which carried excerpts from a Reuters report alleging the Thai military was involved in trafficking refugees from Myanmar’s ethnic Rohingya minority to Malaysia.

Outbreaks of ethnic conflict in Myanmar in recent years have led to thousands of Rohingya, who are largely denied citizenship in Myanmar, to flee the country.

But the boats often drift into Thai waters. The Reuters report alleged Thai naval forces and police cooperate with human traffickers to send Rohingya to primitive camps until families can pay a ransom.

Morison says the charges, filed by the navy, are a “set up” and part of efforts to shut down his website which has long reported on the trafficking of Rohingya.

Human rights organisations and the media have called for the charges to be dropped.

A spokesman from US-based Human Rights Watch, Brad Adams, called the trial “unjustified”.

The navy “should have debated these journalists publicly if they had concerns with the story rather than insisting on their prosecution under the draconian Computer Crimes Act and criminal libel statutes,” Mr Adams said.

The Bangkok-based Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand said it shared the view of the UN Human Rights Commissioner “that such a prosecution serves only to stifle media freedom on an issue of profound importance to the rights of a persecuted people”.